Upholstering fabric



Patented Oct. 23, 1945 UPHOLSTERING FABRIC William D. Hedges, John C. Lowman, and Thomas J. Kerr, Columbus. Ohio, assisnors to Columbus Coated Fabrics Corporation, Columbus, Ohio. a corporation of Ohio Application January 19, 1940, Serial No. 314,686

1 Claim.

This invention relates to the manufacture of coated fabric and more particularly to upholstery, artificial leather and the like.

It is an object of this invention to provide a material which will withstand repeated flexing, folding or twisting without cracking or peeling of the coating.

Another object of this invention is to provide an improved coated fabric which is adapted for I use as'upholstery and the like coverings which will not become tacky or soften when heated for several hours at a temperature of 185 degree F.

Another object is to provide a coated fabric which possesses improved flexing and folding properties over the conventional type coated fabric material.

A further object is to produce a pliable coated material for upholstery by coating a flexible base material with a pyroxylin composition having improved durability and which retains its pliability for a long time.

:Another object is to provide an upholstery ma-- terial by coating a fabric base sheet with a composition plasticized with a reaction product of castor oil maleic anhydride and glycol.

These and other Objects will be readily apparent from the following description taken in connection with the drawing.

In the drawing:

Figure 1 is an elevation view, partly in section, illustrating the use of a coated fabric of this invention, as upholstering for a cushion or the like;

Figure 2 is an enlarged cross sectional view of a portion of the fabric showing the building up of the coating in the form of a base coating and a superimposed clear coating;

Figure 3 is a similar enlarged sectional view of a coated fabric wherein a color coat is interposed between the clear and base coat.

In general, the most important requirements of upholstery. artificial leather and the like, are that they withstand repeated flexing, bending and folding without cracking. Further the coating must be such that no exudation of the plasticizer occurs when the material is heated for. several hours at around 185 degree F. Heretofore the maximum flexing was obtained in the coating by the use of a plasticizer such as raw castor oil,

but a coating made using material amounts of rawcastor oil has been found to exude the castor oil on the surface at temperatures much below culty encountered by spewing is overcome; however. such a product has poor flexing qualities.

The present invention provides a coating composition which is adapted to be utilized in making coated fabric and upholstery which overcomes these difficulties. This is accomplished by substituting for castor oil plasticizer a polyhydric alcohol-dibasic acid modified castor oil product.

The following examples illustrate typical methods of producing the plasticizing agent utilized in forming the coated fabric composition of this invention:

Example I A mixture of parts by weight of castor oil,

31 parts by weight of glycol and 50 parts by weight I of maleic anhydride is heated together in a reaction chamber, with or without tirring or blowing with CO2, at a temperature of approximately 230 degrees C. for 12 hours. The reaction chamber is preferably equipped with a stirrer, and provision is made for escape of the water formed during the reaction, while at the same time loss of glycol is prevented. When the product is heat treated for this length of time the product is in the form of a gel. If his desired to carry the resin to this state it is preferable to add a solvent such as toluol or xylol thereto while the resin is still hot. This prevents the resin from going into an insoluble state before it is used, and also provides a product which is readily dispersed in coating compositions. If CO2 is used the alcohol compatibility of the resin is somewhat decreased and the cooking time is shortened. Carbon dioxide may be introduced by bubbling the gas through the mixture. With the use of carbon dioxide a lower acid value resin is produced.

Example Ii has an acid number of about 9 without the use of CO2. By heat treating the resin for longer than 8 hours at a temperature between 200 and 250 degrees C. the final resinous product will be in the form of a difllcultly soluble gel.

I Example III ,In this example, 800 parts by weight of castor for castor oil.

oil, 50 parts by weight of maleic anhydride and 26 parts by weight of glycol, preferably diethylene glycol, are mixed together and heated, as set out above in Example I. In this instance the cooking time is about 1-4 hours at 230 degrees C. The resinous product produced has an acid number of about 9. A longer cooking time will produce a substantially insoluble resin. Where the resin is to be cooked to produce a product having a high viscosity it is preferable to add toluol or xylol in sufllcient amount while the resin is hot so as to prevent the product from going over into an insoluble state upon cooling. The resins made as described will continue to polymerize at temperatures below 200 degrees C. and even below 100 degrees C. so that the introduction of solvent to prevent the polymerization from continuing so as to produce an insoluble solid gel is required.

' Emample IV In this instance, 1000 to 1200 parts by weight of castor oil are mixed with 26 parts by weight of diethylene glycol and 50 parts by weight of maleic anhydride and the mixture heat treated as in the previous exam le. The time required for cooking this batch is much longer than that for the preyious example. It was found impossible to produce a gel from this combination even after cooking the resinous batch for 27 hours at 275 degrees C. The product, however, results in yielding a bodied oily resin having definite advantages as a plasticizer over raw castor oil.

It will be understood that this invention is not limited to the ingredients and part'cular proportion set out in the above examples and that equivalent compounds may be employed in making the plasticizing resin. Any oil comprising hydroxyl groups in its formula, which is capable of becoming dehydrated and which after such dehydration is converted into a drying oil, may be substituted Further, suitable portions of castor oil may be replaced with any one or more of the non-drying or semi-drying oils. Glycols having the general formula CnH2n(0H)2 may be used in making the resin, diethylene glycol being preferable. Triethylene, propylene and higher glycols may be used in place of ethylene and diethylene glycol. Some glycols offer definite advantages over others, in certain cases, as for example when diethylene glycol is substituted for ethylene glyr col, the cooking time of the resin is decreased. This invention, however, is applicable to the use of various polyhydric alcohols including glycerin which react similarly as the glycols to produce the plasticizing resin.

In the examples maleic anhydride is the polybasic acid preferably used, but other unsaturated polybasic and monobasic acids such as fumaric, acrylic, crotonic and the like may be utilized in place of maleic. In general, all unsaturated polybasic carbcxylic acids of the aromatic, aliphatic or heterocyclic may be employed. The higher viscosity plasticizer compositions show less tendency to exude than the lower viscosity less polymerized plasticizer product. The plasticizer forconventional manner.

B which preferably comprises a nitrocellulose composition plasticized with the maleic anhydride-glycol modified castor oil mentioned heretofore. Over this base coating B is applied a clear coat C, as illustrated in Figure 2, or a color coat D may be previously applied over the base coat, as illustrated in Figure 3. After the application of each of the coatings the fabric is dried or baked at a temperature sufficient to produce a tack-free coatingn This builtup coated fabric provides a completed upholstering fabric which may be applied over a spring cushion seat 2, as illustrated in Figure l. The nitrocellulose or pyroxylin coated fabric made in this manner has Example V Parts by weight Nitrocellulose (V sec. or 20-30 sec. viscosity) 10.0

Plasticizer (Example DI) 16.0 Plasticizer (Example IV) 7.5 Pigment 7.5 Solvent 40.0

The solvent is that conventionally used in compounding nitrocellulose compositions and in this instance comprises by volume ethyl acetate per cent, alcohol 32 per cent, hydrocarbon (toluol or xylol) 22 /2 per cent. Different pigments may be used which are preferably ground in the nitrocellulose and plasticizer composition, such as is commonly done in a ball mill. If desired suitable driers may be incorporated to speed up the film formation, particularly where slow drying pigments are used. The addition of zinc preferably in the form of naphthanate will retard the drying action of the fast drying pigments so that mixtures of zinc naphthanate with other pigments which accelerate the drying of the coating may .be made to control the final v product.

The above ingredients are compounded in the The cloth is then coated with the coatin composition and dried. Coated fabric made with this formulation does not exude or soften at 190 degrees F. and its flexing properties are maintained after aging,

As another typical fromula for compounding coating suitable for exceedingly soft pieces of coated fabric, the following formulation is ilmulated using 800 parts of castor oil, as shown in lustrative: I

Example VI Parts by weight Nitrocellulose /2 sec. or 20-30 sec. viscosity) 10.0

Plasticizer (Example III) 11.3 Plasticizer (Example IV) 10.0 Pigment 10.0 Superfloss (diatomaceous earth) 3.0

Butyl acetyl ricinoleate 2,5

It is often desirable to apply a varnish or oil drying coating over a pyroxylin coated fabric to give the coated fabric a high gloss. In order to obtain such a coating it is essential that the softener or plasticizer used in formulating the base coat does not exude at the temperature at which the varnish coating applied thereover is dried. The coating compositions formulated according to this invention employing the maleic anhydride-polyhydric modified castor oil as a plasticizer for the pyroxylin coating provide an ideal base over which the oil varnish, drying oil, alkyd resin or similar cle'ar varnish compositions may be applied.

As a typical formula for a base coating the following may be used:

Example VII Parts by weight Nitrocellulose (/2 sec. or 20-30 sec. viscosity) 10.0 Plasticizer (Example III) 22.5 Pigment 7,5 Solvent 40.0

The solvent used may be formulated from a mixture of ethyl acetate, alcohol and hydrocarbon solvent as mentioned above in Example V, or any suitable solvent mixture commonly used in compounding cellulose nitrate compositions.

Over this base coating there may be applied a clear varnish or synthetic resinous coating such as a flexible drying oil alkyd resin varnish.

In the above examples it will be understood that different viscosity nitrocellulose such as 5 I second, second and higher viscosity cellulose which will exhibit a high degree of flexibility and freedom from exudation of softener when the coated fabric is subjected to relatively high temperatures such as 185 to 200 degrees F.

when the resinous plasticizers herein disclosed are used to replace raw castor oil on a part-byweight basis the plasticizer film is somewhat less pliable. If the plasticizing resin is used to replace only a portion of the castor oil a softer film results than when the resinous plasticizer alone is employed, and the flexibility of the coating is greatly increased and the exudation point of the plasticizer is raised materially. It has been found unexpectedly that when upholstering material or the like coated fabric made according to this invention is aged, it retains its original properties better after it has aged several months than a similar material made utilizing raw castor oil as a plasticizer before ithas aged. It is believed that this results from the influence of th pigment on the drying action of the resinous plasticizer which forms a gel and continues to plasticize the filament without weakening it, while in the case of raw castor oil no such results are produced. Further, more of the resinous plasticizer disclosed herein may be incorporated in the coat ing film without encountering exudation difliculties than is possible using raw castor oil. In this way artificial leather may be produced using the modified castor oil plasticizer which exhibits outstanding improvement in flexibility and also does not exude the plasticizer at temperatures upwards of 185 degrees F.

It is understood that this invention is not limited to the specific examples given and that widely different embodiments of this invention may be made without departing from the spirit and scope thereof.

Having thus fully described our invention, what we claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

A coated upholstery fabric material comprising a fabric base having a flexible coating consisting of the evaporation residue of a mixture consisting of 10 parts by weight of nitrocellulose, plasticizing resin consisting of 16 parts by weight of a condensation product of 800 parts by weight of castor oil, 50 parts by weight of maleic anhydride and 26 parts by weight of glycol, and 7.5 parts by weight of a condensation product made up of 1000 to 1200 parts by weight of castor oil, 26 parts by weight of diethylene glycol and 50 parts by weight of maleic anhydride, 7.5 parts by weight of pigment and 40 parts by weight of solvent.

WILLIAM D. HEDGES. JOHN C. LOWMAN. THOMAS J. KERR. 

